


If I Could Hate You More

by SuperNova53



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Angst, Angsty Characters Being Angsty, M/M, Off-screen Relationship(s), POV Steve Rogers, POV Tony Stark, Past Relationship(s)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-03-18
Updated: 2018-03-29
Packaged: 2019-04-03 22:13:37
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 1,996
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14005941
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SuperNova53/pseuds/SuperNova53
Summary: Tony stops short with four feet between them.Four feet that might as well have been four hundred.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> This is me having a go at writing some angsty stuff - there is another chapter under construction for this, and I know that this sort of stuff has been done a _million_ times before, but I just can't leave these two alone!!
> 
> I didn't tag it but there is some swearing in here too... Enjoy.

Fourteen hundred hours. On the dot, Steve’s been standing there for the best part of half an hour, hands stuffed deep in his jacket pockets clenching and unclenching his fists, driving his nails into his palms. Swallowing doubt and nausea that he wasn’t coming.

He needs this to be what it is, a goodbye.

Or a last-ditch attempt?

Or a way back?

He’s not even sure himself anymore, but he knows, he knows this _can’t_ go South, they can be civil to each other. Steve will brush off every smirk, every snide comment. He can’t leave it the way it is.

The scraunch of the service elevator grate draws his attention, the muttering that follows, echoing through the vast emptiness of the derelict warehouse that was the decided meeting place. It’s apt really and it suddenly occurs to Steve as he listens to the approaching footsteps, that Tony suggested it out of spite – some poetic representation of what they had become, _derelict, empty._ Nothing.

Tony stops short with four feet between them.

Four feet that might as well have been four hundred. He makes some non-commital shrug with his shoulders and stares off at a neutral spot over and above Steve’s shoulder.

“Well. I’m here.” Steve says nothing and tightens his grip on the nothing in his pocket. Tony’s words are bitten out and clipped short with precise anger, but they haven’t spoken face to face in what felt like forever and the sound of Tony’s voice strikes every nerve, brings them raw to the surface.

“What was so important you couldn’t tell me over the phone?” His eyes settle on Steve’s for a fleeting moment before snapping to his feet. Steve shifts, restless in his own body, this was harder than he had ever pictured in his head.

In his head they shook hands, they _definitely_ stood closer than two strangers waiting for a bus. When he felt weak he imagined that they embraced, and Steve got to inhale the coconut scent of Tony’s hair and the heady tang of his cologne, just like he used to.

But this was not that, it wasn’t a reunion, it wasn’t a mad dash to the airport pounding on the cabin door yelling that you’re sorry. It was a goodbye because Steve was sat between two powder kegs, one would ignite the other and Tony didn’t understand. Tony was stubborn. He had to say goodbye to Tony. Such were the lies Steve would tell himself when he lay awake at night feeling his heart tear itself apart.

It’s not fair.

“I’m leaving.” He finally chokes, the effort to hold his voice from cracking making the back of his throat ache and leaving a metallic twang in his mouth.

Tony doesn’t react more than a shrug, still staring resolutely at his shoes, he’s not giving Steve an inch. “That’s it?” He rocks forward on the balls of his feet, “That’s what was so important you couldn’t tell me over the phone?”

“Tony I- “

 _“Save it!”_ Tony’s eyes flare with anger when they make deliberate contact with Steve’s who blinks back tears because this was the last thing he wanted. “And _stop_ looking at me like that. I hate it when you look at me like that.” Tony nostrils flare as he takes a step forward jabbing a finger in Steve’s direction. _“You don’t get to look at me like you still care!”_

Steve bites down on the _‘I do still care.’_ It would sound petulant defending a corner that was no longer his.

“You call me here to rub salt in or what?” Tony’s getting in his space. _“Fuck you_ Rogers. You want to go monster hunting, _be my guest,_ you don’t need my permission.”

Steve sets his jaw maybe he was too presumptuous in thinking that he could ignore every snide remark. “He’s not a monster.” Tony’s making this personal, but then how could it be anything but. “He’s my friend.”

“I _was_ your friend, _emphasis on the ‘was’.”_ Tony backs down, only a step or two, folding his arms in front of his chest.

“He needs me.” And there’s that flash of anger in Tony’s eyes again the sudden intake of breath like he might say something but thinks better of it. “I don’t have a choice.” He adds, trying to convince himself more than for Tony’s benefit.

Tony snorts out a laugh, rough and jagged on the edge of rage. “Oh, you _had_ a choice _Rogers.”_ His lip curls back on his teeth when he speaks. “And you made it pretty clear who was important to you and who was-” he pauses, and Steve knows, he’s looking for the words that are going to cut the deepest. It’s fine Steve can take it, _“Surplus to requirement.”_

Steve subconsciously braces every muscle in his body, stretches up to his full height. “That’s not fair. I never-“

 _“Fair?”_ Tony laughs in a shrill uneven pitch, raking fingers through his hair. “I’ll tell _you_ what’s not fair…” He trails off as his voice loses its power, blinking at Steve owlish and lost. “I thought we were… I mean we could of…” he chokes stepping forward so far into Steve’s space that a deep breath from either of them would mean their chests touched. He’s so close he can see the bloodshot pink of his eyes and the unkemptness of his beard that was a few days past due a shave.

Steve instinctively moves to hold Tony by both shoulders and his hands stop short hovering inches away. “Don’t _touch_ me.” He sobs, burying his face into the fabric of Steve’s jacket. _“Just don’t touch me.”_

Tony clings to him and Steve obligingly stands with his arms held up at the elbows and awkwardly away from his body as his heart breaks underneath the wet patch Tony’s made on his shirt.

The derelict warehouse swims out of focus, and Steve squeezes his eyes shut, let his body shake as the tears fall into Tony’s hair.

_It’s not fair._


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Nobody’s going to hear him.
> 
> Nobody comes to check on him anymore.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So the conclusion of my angsty drabble, hope you guys like it :).
> 
> No plot really, just me having a go at a different style of writing.

Tony’s back before he’s missed, sunglasses firmly fixed in place doing his best impression of composure, rubbing the pads of his fingers across the tip of his thumb.

The skin feels chaffed where he’d clung to Steve’s jacket like he was desperate, pressing the serrated zip into his fingertips.

_“We can’t come back from this can we?” Steve’s voice had been a rumble in his chest against Tony’s ear._

_Tony’s silence said it all; he had looked up, seen the shadows on Steve’s face, the incandescent blue of his eyes magnified and bleary. Every muscle in his face strained._

_They had been inches away from each other, the closest they had been in months._

_It would have been so easy._

_Just to stretch up._

_Tony turned away at the last second, pushed Steve away with both hands, satisfied to see him stagger before stalking back the way he’d come, wiping his face on his sleeve like he hadn’t done since he was a kid, his heart hammering in his chest and deafening in his ears._

In his workshop, there’s nobody there to ask if he’s alright, nobody to ask him where he’s been, nobody to see him spin absently in the office chair, his eyes waxy and his expression lost to the fifty-yard stare, because suddenly everything in here reminds him of Steve, the wound that never really healed ripped wide open again.

It makes him feel sick, ties his stomach in knots, he was angry before. Maybe more than angry, it had narrowed his mind made it easier to ignore the stabbing emptiness that came with losing Steve. 

Now it’s all he can feel, twisting inside until he’s retching into his lap because Steve wasn’t coming back, not now. He splutters coughing up nothing but bile. Pressing his hands to his chest that feels like it’s been stepped on.

Tony hasn’t got enough strength left to look into the void that Steve used to occupy in his heart, not enough strength just to look and see how deep it really went, how much of _himself_ he’s lost.

He knows the looks he’ll get if he goes upstairs. Two-day-old t-shirt, snot of the sleeve and ominous vomit splatter down the front adding to the menagerie of stains, jeans that are falling past his hips because eating didn’t seem all that important anymore. It’ll be the pitying look of ‘poor Tony, betrayed by his friend _again._ ’ 

He can handle the pity, smile that forced grin, toss his head back and pretend that it wasn’t killing him inside, and at least… At least they don’t know, they all think it was a friendship that’s been ruined, no more of the Tony and Steve show; begrudgingly making each other coffee and disagreeing on the minor details just to see the other get angry, but always managing to pull it together at the last second and make it look flawless, because they were friends really. That's what they all said right? 

They don’t know he’s lost a lover; nobody knew Steve hadn’t slept in his own room for the best part of three months. 

But Tony knows. Tony remembers. The way Steve reacted to his touch that first time permanently etched into his brain. It had been _so_ raw and _so_ beautiful the way his bare chest had flinched under his fingers, the way his breath had caught, and he’d shut his eyes and relaxed into the feeling, letting Tony have his way, letting him explore until there wasn’t an inch left Tony hadn’t kissed with the dulcet sound of Steve’s soft moans in his ear.

Tony had let the world fall away in those stolen moments. Got himself lost in everything Steve. Let himself think that maybe it was love, let himself believe it was when he lay awake wrapped up in Steve’s arms who must have thought he was asleep when he’d whisper: “I could lay here forever with you.” His breath the softest tingle on the back of Tony’s neck. 

There’s that wave of nausea again, Tony breathes through it, ringing his hands until his palms are red and his knuckles are white. Holding back the tears, holding them back until he can’t anymore. 

Because it’s all so broken and Tony’s got Steve’s shield propped against his desk and all he wants is to throw the damn thing out, but it’s all he had left now. 

Now they meet as enemies and part the same way.

Now they’re not lovers.

His secret world he had built with Steve lay in ruins. He put a wall up brick by brick to keep himself strong, to block it out, now he can feel it collapsing, taking him down with it until he’s curled under his desk, knees pulled up to his chest.

Tony Stark never learned how to cry with style. No blown glassy eyes with a lone tear rolling down his cheek.

He can’t breathe right, can’t feel his face. His chest contorts and fights the urge to draw a breath and he feels his insides break, shattering like the crystal whiskey decanter he’d knock on the floor as a kid, he cut his hands to ribbons trying to clean it up before anybody saw.

_His heart’s cut to ribbons over Steve._

The insuppressible wail rips from his throat and tears through air of his workshop, drowning out the low hum of electronics that always permeated the space.

Somebody’s going to hear him, the desolate sound of his sobbing interrupted only for the need to suck in air. 

Nobody’s going to hear him. Nobody comes to check on him anymore. Because it was always Steve’s job. Steve who drew him up by his wrists from his desk and let him fetch up against his chest. _“It’s time for bed Tony.”_ He’d murmur and Tony would go like he was in a trance, fooling himself into thinking he could keep hold of something so precious.

**Author's Note:**

> As always comments and feedback welcomed!


End file.
